Top 160 George Soros Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes.”

— George Soros

Featured in: Failure Quotes, Mistake Quotes, Understanding Quotes

2. “If investing is entertaining, if you’re having fun, you’re probably not making any money. Good investing is boring.”

— George Soros

3. “Economic history is a never-ending series of episodes based on falsehoods and lies, not truths. It represents the path to big money. The object is to recognize the trend whose premise is false, ride that trend and step off before it is discredited.”

— George Soros

4. “It’s not whether you’re right or wrong that’s important, but how much money you make when you’re right and how much you lose when you’re wrong.”

— George Soros

5. “I’m only rich because I know when I’m wrong.”

— George Soros

6. “The hardest thing to judge is what level of risk is safe.”

— George Soros

7. “Short term volatility is greatest at turning points and diminishes as a trend becomes established.”

— George Soros

8. “When a long-term trend loses it’s momentum, short-term volatility tends to rise. It is easy to see why that should be so: the trend-following crowd is disoriented.”

— George Soros

Featured in: Momentum Quotes

9. “If I had to sum up my practical skills, I would use one word: survival. And operating a hedge fund utilized my training in survival to the fullest.”

— George Soros

10. “There is no point in being confident and having a small position.”

— George Soros

11. “Outperforming the market with low volatility on a consistent basis is an impossibility. I outperformed the market for 30-odd years, but not with low volatility.”

— George Soros

12. “The scope for improvement is infinite, precisely because perfection is unattainable.”

— George Soros

13. “There is always a divergence between our perception and what actually exists.”

— George Soros

14. “Stock market bubbles don’t grow out of thin air. They have a solid basis in reality, but reality as distorted by a misconception.”

— George Soros

15. “The prevailing wisdom is that markets are always right. I take the opposite position. I assume that markets are always wrong.”

— George Soros

16. “I’m not better than the next trader, just quicker at admitting my mistakes and moving on to the next opportunity.”

— George Soros

17. “The worse a situation becomes the less it takes to turn it around, the bigger the upside.”

— George Soros

18. “Making an investment decision is like formulating a scientific hypothesis and submitting it to a practical test.”

— George Soros

19. “Market prices are always wrong.”

— George Soros

20. “Whenever there is a conflict between universal principles and self-interest, self-interest is likely to prevail.”

— George Soros

21. “The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.”

— George Soros

22. “My approach works not by making valid predictions but by allowing me to correct false ones.”

— George Soros

23. “My sense of insecurity keeps me alert, always ready to correct my errors.”

— George Soros

24. “If the bubbles contain a misconception, as they always do, then it can’t be maintained forever.”

— George Soros

25. “Find the trend whose premise is false, and bet against it.”

— George Soros

26. “Taking this view, it is possible to see financial markets as a laboratory for testing hypotheses, albeit not strictly scientific ones. The truth is, successful investing is a kind of alchemy.”

— George Soros

27. “There is very little difference between speculation and investment. The only difference is basically that investments are successful speculations because if you successfully anticipate the future you make a speculative profit.”

— George Soros

28. “The main enemy of the open society, I believe, is no longer the communist but the capitalist threat.”

— George Soros

29. “I fancied myself as some kind of god or an economic reformer like Keynes.”

— George Soros

30. “Discount the obvious, bet on the unexpected.”

— George Soros

31. “The strength of this country lies in the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights and the freedom of speech and thought.”

— George Soros

32. “Unfortunately, the more complex the system, the greater the room for error.”

— George Soros

33. “Making an investment decision is like formulating a scientific hypothesis and submitting it to a practical test. The main difference is that the hypothesis that underlies an investment decision is intended to make money and not to establish a universally valid generalization.”

— George Soros

34. “Every bubble has two components: something – some real trend, and a misconception about that trend.”

— George Soros

35. “I rely a great deal on animal instincts.”

— George Soros

36. “Start by assuming the market is always wrong, so if you copy everybody else on Wall Street, you’re doomed to do poorly.”

— George Soros

37. “Markets are designed to allow individuals to look after their private needs and to pursue profit. It’s really a great invention, and I wouldn’t underestimate the value of that. But they’re not designed to take care of social needs.”

— George Soros

38. “Of course, speculation will always make a crisis worse. If there is a weak point, it will expose it.”

— George Soros

39. “A global economy is characterized not only by the free movement of goods and services but, more important, by the free movement of ideas and of capital.”

— George Soros

40. “To be successful, you need leisure. You need time hanging heavily on your hands.”

— George Soros

41. “Now that I have called you on your false accusation, you are using additional smear tactics.”

— George Soros

42. “Markets can influence the events that they anticipate.”

— George Soros

43. “However, even a strong government can’t perform miracles. It needs money from the taxpayers.”

— George Soros

44. “I don’t panic. The same thing applies to me as to everybody else, so I’m given to euphoria and despair. And I would say that I basically have survived by recognizing my mistakes.”

— George Soros

45. “Law has become a business. Health care has become a business. Unfortunately, politics has also become a business. That really undermines society.”

— George Soros

46. “Every bubble consists of a trend that can be observed in the real world and a misconception relating to that trend. The two elements interact with each other in a reflexive manner.”

— George Soros

47. “As a society we can’t live without moral considerations. We do have to protect the public good. And markets are not designed to do that, so we need a political process.”

— George Soros

48. “No individual anonymous participant can influence the prices and therefore you really can speculate in the market without paying attention to morality. That’s one of the positive features of markets. That’s why they function.”

— George Soros

49. “Economics seeks to be a science. Science is supposed to be objective and it is difficult to be scientific when the subject matter, the participant in the economic process, lacks objectivity.”

— George Soros

50. “I put forward a pretty general theory that financial markets are intrinsically unstable. That we really have a false picture when we think about markets tending towards equilibrium.”

— George Soros